what you want to be when you grow up


“It isn’t really important to decide when you are very young just exactly what you want to become when you grow up.

It is much more important to decide on the way you want to live. If you are going to be honest with yourself and honest with your friends, if you are going to get involved in causes which are good for others, not only for yourselves, then it seems to me that that is sufficient, and maybe what you will be is only a matter of chance.”

==

Golda Meir

—–

Ok.

 

 

Teaching high school kids and talking about business and life is tough these days.

 

It seems every teen I speak with is under amazing pressure to decide what they want to do with their lives and who they want to be when they grow up.

 

 

And make the decision now.

 

 

I admit.

 

 

When asked to talk to these kids about this topic I do show this quote above from Golda Meir.

 

And I do talk about it.

 

 

And maybe 20% (on a good day get it).

 

 

But regardless of the percentage by the end of the discussion even the 20% (or less) is back with the other 80% not talking about how they want to live their lives but rather what they want to become in their lives. Or what they want to do. And they ask lots of questions.

 

I don’t have answers.

 

 

And I wish I did.

 

 

I tell them mine was a journey.

 

And I wasn’t sure the first step was the right one <but that I took a first step and gave 100% with it>.

 

And I wasn’t sure my second step was a particularly good one <but that I had taken another step and gave a 100% with it>.

 

 

And I wasn’t sure at any point or with any step what I wanted to become <but I had recognized aspects of what I was actually doing that put me in situations that made me happier>.

 

 

But kids look for answers.

Not “journey” discussions.

 

 

So.

 

 

In the end of this discussion I almost always circle back to the quote I use to open the discussion. The one above.

 

 

I tell them I don’t have answers.

 

 

In fact I tell them that they should feel free and come up with their own answers but be fully prepared to find out that life <that fickle thing Life always is> may suggest different answers to them at some point and they should keep an open mind and pay attention to life and listen and even adapt if it is something that ‘feels right.’

 

 

Then?

 

 

I do tell them the only answer I am sure of.

The only answer I can give them with 100% confidence.

 

 

And that is that they need to decide what type of person they want to be.

 

 

I don’t promise them what Golda does <“it is a matter of chance”> but what I do promise them is that if they decide that … regardless of what they become or what they actually do … they will have a strong sense of what I call “I.”

 

“I” is a comfort with who you are as a person. It absolves <a portion at least)> you of being solely judged by how society judges you.words change inspire future

 

 

Do kids get it?

 

 

Shit. I don’t know.

 

 

What I do know is I will keep telling them every chance I get.

 

 

And if I get through to one kid every time then it is one more than the time before. In my little pea like brain that is progress.

And progress is good.

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Written by Bruce